New Year's Ball
by aisarete
Summary: A decision to hold a ball to for New Year's turns Hogwarts upside down when a relationship is revealed... Snarry
1. Default Chapter

Yet another slightly pointless story from yours truly!

With the approaching war, Professor Dumbledore had thought it a good idea to throw a New Year's Eve ball. Most of the staff disapproved, saying that they should concentrate on tactics and such, but the Headmaster insisted. "People, especially young people, need time to remember that there is a brighter tomorrow outside of the darkness of today. What better time to honor this than New Year's?" Snape, upon hearing this, said nothing, but the look of someone humoring a madman spoke volumes.

It was agreed that only of-age students would attend,and that alcohol would be served, as a treat. Severus just scowled.

They also decided that the first week of classes after the holidays would be canceled. Sev, as well as most of the other teachers – and later the students – were thrilled.

(11:35PM)

Harry entered the Great Hall, looking around at the splendid decorations. Used to it, and dreadfully bored, he sat at a table near the back of the room. He spotted Hermione chatting with Hannah Abbott at the other side of the room as Ron danced with Susan Bones. He watched the pair for a moment. They made a good couple, certainly. Ron looked dashing in his new dress robes, and Susan's hair swung gracefully around her face, her blue gown accentuating her eyes. After a while of watching them waltz to a slow song, Harry grew bored and his eyes began to dart around the crowd once more.

Draco Malfoy was dancing with Blaise Zabini. That was unexpected. As he watched, Harry's temper died down a bit. Pansy looked furious, a woman truly scorned.

Draco's chin rested in Blaise's hair, while Blaise's dark head rested on Draco's chest, his black eyelashes resting calmly on pale cheeks. Both were smiling. It was nice to see; plus the look on Pansy's face was hilarious, truly priceless. But soon, that too bored Harry, who felt as if he were waiting for something to happen. He didn't know if it was good or bad, but it would be _something_, at least. Grabbing a glass of Firewhisky, he began a solid attempt at alleviating his boredom.

(11:43PM)

Severus Snape strolled casually into the Great Hall, looking for the entire world like someone who wishes themselves anywhere else but cannot do a thing about it. He saw the students that were of age milling about, dancing and drinking. He saw one couple in the corner, doing things that they would not have done in front of teachers had they not been very drunk. He contemplated going over and taking some points, just to liven things up, but changed his mind and settled for rolling his eyes.

Then he saw Harry.

(11:45PM)

Harry looked around once more, his attention wandering from his shot glass. He really couldn't concentrate on anything tonight. Glancing towards the door, he saw Snape standing there, eyes sharp as ever. In black pants and a dark green shirt, he looked out-of-place. Not in a bad way, but almost ethereal in the moonlight. His pale skin seemed to glow, and his not-greasy hair was pulled away from his face. Spotting him, Snape started over towards Harry, seemingly desperate for conversation that was semi intelligent. Harry grinned at his lover, who grinned back.

(11:47PM)

Reaching Harry, Severus pushed himself up onto the table.

"You're bored as well, I see."

"Look around, Sev. It would be impossible not to be."

Severus smirked, and both of them turned to watch the crowds again. After a few minutes, Severus spoke again.

"Would you like to dance?"

Harry started, staring at the man before him, who had surely gone insane.

"What are you talking about?"

Sev looked at him as if he was the crazy one.

"There's nothing else to do. Besides, I want to. I think it's time people know, don't you?"

Harry searched Sev's face for a sign that he was jesting, but he seemed intent on his cause.

"There will be questions tomorrow. People won't like it." he said quietly.

"We already knew that."

Sev stood up, offering his hand insistently. His onyx eyes were fixed on Harry.

"Tomorrow is a new day. We'll face it when it comes, just like we always have."

Harry looked at the hand dubiously, still unsure.

"Please?"

Looking at Severus as he stood there, seeming so innocent, Harry slipped his hand into Severus's and allowed himself to be lead onto the dance floor.

(11:52PM)

Severus slowly pulled his lover towards the dancing area, both of them smiling slightly. They moved to the very center of attention, making sure everyone was looking, and began to dance. The dance was slow; the last dance of the year. Most of the dancers and onlookers were almost completely immobile as they watched the pair. Severus and Harry continued, aware but uncaring.

As the song ended, the countdown to midnight began, and the magical voice was the only thing that echoed across the silent Hall. The lovers stopped for a moment, simply looking at each other.

"I love you this year, and I'll love you next year, and I'll love you forever." Severus intoned quietly, though his voice carried quite clearly.

"And I you, but let us wait and see." Harry smiled softly.

"Three, two, one…Happy New Year!" The magical voice shouted.

"Do you still love me?" Harry whispered into the still-quieted Hall.

"Now, tomorrow, and forever." Severus responded, capturing Harry's lips in a chaste kiss. The Hall, if possible, got even quieter. The pair looked around at the crowd, smiling amusedly. Then Sev took Harry's hand, and they left the Great Hall to sort themselves out for the New Year. They had better things to do.

(12:02AM)

Draco laughed as he watched the couple waltz out of the doors. He stood behind a grinning Blaise, his arms wrapped comfortably around his boyfriend.

"Do you think they'll be able to handle all the questions tomorrow will bring?" the quiet, dark-haired boy wanted to know.

"I'm not sure, but I plan to have a lot of fun watching them try. Might even add some more…personal questions of my own." Draco's grin was as evil as he normally acted, causing Blaise to swat an 'innocent' smile onto his face again.

"What?"

(12:27AM)

Harry woke up to find himself under the covers, fully dressed for bed with Severus sliding in on the other side. He felt arms as they wrapped silently around his waist, and snuggled in. He was warm, comfortable, and happy.

"G'night, Sev."

"Goodnight, Harry, love."


	2. IMPORTANT FF NET NEWS!

Founded by chisato12010

!Important!

I heard about Redbotton (a program that may get my stories and maybe your stories deleted from FanFiction .net)…

Please read this article I copied off from Civil Initiative .com... If I get in trouble for posting this then so be it, but I feel all readers should know the facts… It's their RIGHT…

Friday, August 27, 2010

The RedBotton Issue and what it means for FFNet

As some may have noticed there has recently been a mass reporting of stories on FFNet that are being made by a person known as RedBootton. The administration of the site have been made aware of a disturbing revelation about this account.

RedBootton is actually a program that was designed by Lord Kelvin and is used by various members of Literate Union. Redbootton appears to be capable of accessing Ffnet and searching stories or summaries for either key words or patterns of grammar and then creating a list of the stories that are "in violation of ToS" it then mass reports these stories until the stories are either removed by the author or mods. The members of LU don't even scan over the list before executing the report portion of the program.

The list itself is generated in a matter of minutes.

The idea is to go through each fandom systematically and clean house until Lord Kelvin can finish the touches on the site wide program. After each fandom is cleaned it will then be used to scan all new stories being posted.

This is a serious violation of the ToS on FFNet

4. General Use of the Website

hereby grants you permission to access and use the Website as set forth in these Terms of Service, provided that:

A. You agree not to distribute in any medium any part of the Website, including but not limited to User Submissions (defined below), without 's prior written authorization.

B. You agree not to alter or modify any part of the Website.

C. You agree not to access User Submissions (defined below) or Content through any technology or means other than the Website itself.

E. You agree not to use or launch any automated system, including without limitation, "robots," "spiders," or "offline readers," that accesses the Website in a manner that sends more request messages to the servers in a given period of time than a human can reasonably produce in the same period by using a conventional on-line web browser. Notwithstanding the foregoing, grants the operators of public search engines permission to use spiders to copy materials from the site for the sole purpose of and solely to the extent necessary for creating publicly available searchable indices of the materials, but not caches or archives of such materials. reserves the right to revoke these exceptions either generally or in specific cases. You agree not to collect or harvest any personally identifiable information, including account names, from the Website, nor to use the communication systems provided by the Website (e.g. comments, email) for any commercial solicitation purposes. You agree not to solicit, for commercial purposes, any users of the Website with respect to their User Submissions.

What is disturbing about this issue is that many false positives are given, and stories that are not in violation are being reported. The administration of FFNET have been made aware of this issue, but even after repeated e-mails they seem to be either indifferent or actually support the use of this program by Literate Union.

What follows is what is known about RedBootton and how this one simple program could easily impact the site and why every one should be angry that the administration as remained silent about this issue.

(RB) is a program that accesses and systematically searches for and reports stories that it flags as in violation of ToS.

program is not perfect and has had false hits, resulting in stories with the inclusion of a header formatted in the following manner as being reported for script format even when the rest of the story is in actual story paragraph form.

Rating:

Pairing:

Summery:

Authors Note:

no long reads or even checks over the stories that are flagged by RB before hitting the report function.

advanced form of the program that is available to trusted members that includes a search function for typo's and grammar. This could result in a 10,000+ word stories that may have a few typo's or stories that have characters that may have dialog that is grammatically incorrect as being reported.

is a beta version that will have the ability to search for MA stories. This search function is based upon the flagging of certain words within the text. A story that may have a rooster referred to as a cock or a cat being called a pussy could easily be flagged and reported as MA.

6.A Beta version of the advanced program will have the capability to "clean house" site wide, including scanning any stories as they are being posted.

For those who think that is fiction I give you links to the Literate Union Forum.

.net/topic/61196/30589812/1/

In this thread is where Lord Kelvin talks about and includes links to where this program can be downloaded for general use. At one point LK even states "Specific words/phrases are rated MA automatically because they are only present in stories with paraphilia."

.net/topic/61196/30532995/38/#30685587

In this thread there is more talk about both RB and how to use it.

Over the past week multiple emails were sent to the admin and mods of FFNet with no answer. Although it is possible that with a site as large as FFNet that they have yet to find time to address this issue, I find myself leaning more to the belief that they just don't care. Since the site seems unwilling or unable to handle this issue there is only one solution.

That is to leave FFNet. Writers should remove their stories and find alternative sites for posting them. Readers to stop visiting. Perhaps then and only then will this issue be seen as important by the owner.

Personally I would rather fight then flee

Please Post this same message to your stories to to let out the word.


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